


Lackadaisy Sentimentalist

by handful_ofdust



Category: Lackadaisy
Genre: M/M, Period-Typical Anti-Semitism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-18 15:24:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2353211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handful_ofdust/pseuds/handful_ofdust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mordecai Heller loves a golem. It's inconvenient.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lackadaisy Sentimentalist

_Let the_ goyim _kill each other,_ that's what Bookie Lev always used to say, more often than Mordecai Heller cared to count. And also: _They come in, Mordecai, you let them do what they want, let them take what they want, and_ go. _You don't interfere! They hit you, you let them; they curse you, you let them. They spit in your face, you_ let _them, do you hear?_

  
To which Mordecai had nodded at the time, of course, as one did. But found himself thinking, when the chips were finally down—

  
 _No, I don't._ You _do._

  
The difference between a _goy_ and a Jew, the _rebbenim_ said, was always what you _couldn't_ do. To a Jew, their faith came with a thousand and one prohibitions attached, but the _goyim_ could do anything, whatever they wanted, and did. They were animals. If you did the same, you made _a shande far di goyim_ , a shame in front of the Gentiles—made yourself a _sheygetz_ , an abomination, a (dis)honourable _goy_. And while Mordecai certainly didn't _feel goyishe_ , he had only to glance lightly at the Ten Commandments to know how far he'd already traveled from wherever it was he'd been before his personal _goles_ , his exile, the irreparable journey he'd taken by Atlas May's side from Rivington Street to St. Louis, the Little Daisy above and the Lackadaisy beneath.

  
So when Viktor Vasko asked him whether or not he felt bad about what they'd done together (in bed, obviously, if not out of it), it was all too easy for Mordecai to snap: _I kill people for money, you ox. No matter what else I happen to do or not do, otherwise, I'm still not likely to end up anyplace_ nice.

  
To which Viktor merely snorted, as though this was not exactly news; perhaps because he thought they'd end up together, wherever that happened to turn out to be...

  
...and for all Mordecai knew, perhaps he was right. Which was cold comfort in the end, he supposed, but better by far than none.

 

***

  
During that ridiculous fight in the car over nomenclature—asymmetry, grammar, _noise_ —which left them cornfield-stranded and their passenger in the wind, Viktor had grabbed Mordecai by the collar and Mordecai had responded by punching him straight in the face, almost without meaning to: A tight little jab, Battling Levinsky style, followed by a rock-back cross. Viktor being Viktor, this didn't slow him down much, though it did at least seem to impress him. He licked his teeth, gingerly, and spit blood into his handkerchief. “I tink you crack someting,” he said.

  
Mordecai hissed, retrieving his pince-nez from where they'd fallen between the seats, shaking out bruised knuckles. Replying, haughtily, as he did: “Serves you right—you put your hands on me, over nothing. What did you expect?”

  
“I put my dick _in_ you,” Viktor pointed out, “plenty times. You don't mind _that_.”

  
“Oh, it's impossible to talk to you sensibly.”

  
“Yes. So that must be vhy.”

  
“Vhy— _why_ what?”

  
“Vhy ve never _talk_ , too much.”

  
A claim Mordecai longed to refute, not that he had much ammunition to offer along those lines. For a few hours later—passenger retrieved and done with, and any prospective dental damage notwithstanding—Viktor was rolling his forehead in the hollow of Mordecai's belly with his mouth full, humming in a way that revved Mordecai up like a motor. Hot and wet and rough, like having your head in the lion's jaws, but...far, far more foolish, and so exciting it almost almost felt as though the skin of his dick was about to split like a burst sausage. He was bent in half, both knees hiked over Viktor's broad shoulders, chasing release the way a dog chases its tail, all whines and yipping; God only knew how this looked from the outside, but from the in- he was frankly barely recognizable to himself, reduced to sheer raw nerve over hungry flesh, ticking like a bomb. After which—

  
He finally came, panting, back bowing in the opposite direction: Came 'til he couldn't anymore, 'til Viktor swallowed hard, pulled back to lay his chafing, bearded face on the inside of Mordecai's thigh and laughed, tormenting him with aftershocks.

  
“You _like_ that,” he announced, to no one in particular, as though the proof of that assertion weren't eminently obvious. “Yah?”

  
(And: _Oh no, not at all,_ Mordecai wanted to spit in reply, exhausted though he might be. _You—idiot, you hulk. You damnable, smug Christian_ golem _..._ )

  
But he didn't, couldn't. No breath to waste on it. No time, before Viktor rolled him over and had the rest of his way with him.

  
This was how things almost always ended up, most-times, in private. Like the particularly maddening time Viktor had “won” another argument by bending Mordecai over a table, pulling his trousers down and licking him 'til his snarls turned to squeaks. Then spit in one hand, slicked himself and slid in, slow enough to drive them both crazy. By the time Mordecai was babbling, huffing out meaningless half-words between breaths, the only way Viktor could apparently think to shut him up was to bite into the sweaty nape of his neck and shake him, like a puppy; the shock of it was enough to put them both over the edge, yelling, after which they went slack and slid sidelong, ending up in a heap on the kitchen floor.

  
Back in the here and now, he and Viktor were face-up once more; Mordecai lay back bonelessly, balanced in Viktor's lap, his wet hair slick against Viktor's clavicle. With a rumble, Viktor began: “I vant you—”

  
“You've _had_ me. Several times, in succession.”

  
“—chah, shush, let me finish. I _vant_ you to stay here, tonight. Vith me.”

  
For a moment, all Mordecai's alarms went off, a belled choir, dinning: But but but—someone will see, someone will know. Someone will tell (somebody) (something)...

  
_Someone will make sure this makes the rounds. Someone will come gunning for me or you, or both, and I'll end up having to run out onto the street in my drawers with a gun in either hand, shooting, for all the world to see. Your neighbours, Viktor. You might not care, but they will—and I will too, I think._

  
( _I'm...not quite sure._ )

  
Between looking a fool and acting a fool—ie, endangering his own life, or the life of his partner—Mordecai supposed he'd always choose the former, if not gladly. To be honest, however, neither exactly appealed, as a prospect.

  
“Is settled, then,” Viktor said, blissfully unaware of any of the above. “You stay vith me tonight.”

  
Mordecai bridled. “I _do,_ do I? Think again, you insufferable—”

  
“Oh, shush; you vant. You know you do.”

  
Rumbling into the crook of Mordecai's neck as he said it, that farmhouse cock of his already perking up against the crack of Mordecai's behind, frankly inexhaustible...oh, goddamn the man, anyhow.

  
“I don't like to be given orders,” Mordecai claimed, at last. To which Viktor only laughed again, huge and dark, his whole chest shaking with it.

  
“ _Yes_ you do,” he pointed out, once more. “Vhen they tings you vant to do do already, at least.” And Mordecai knew he couldn't disagree, not completely.

  
But: “All right,” was what he heard himself say, eventually, in lieu of anything more elaborate; “if you _insist_.” And let Viktor pull him back down, wrapped tight, into a nest of blankets.

 

***

  
So this was the verdict: Though Mordecai had never hitherto thought of Viktor Vasko as one of those “sentimental types”, it seemed—from all available evidence—that he actually might be, with the very time he and Mordecai chose to spend with each other outside of work, when examined in detail, providing ample proof of said assumption.

  
Viktor, who was massive and unpredictable, a true force of nature, just like the _goyim_ were supposed to be. Who often fell asleep with his eyepatch still on, which didn't strike Mordecai as entirely practical; who drank far too much, too unrestrainedly, for a man in their mutual profession. Sometimes his breath smelled as though he'd been gargling with vodka. Sometimes, it ensued, he actually _had_ been gargling with vodka, in lieu of brushing his teeth. Who ate anything involving meat, and washed it down with strong coffee. Who formed attachments, regardless of the possible cost—most singularly to Mordecai himself, though it often occurred to Mordecai that it could be much worse; to Mitzi (Mrs May), for example, though everyone looked at her—Atlas almost seemed to encourage it. Or Miss Pepper, which would almost be stupider, as an option...

  
They were safe for each other, he and Viktor: Literally, figuratively. A way to explain, if not—completely—rationalize what was happening. Then again, even at its least convenient, lying in Viktor's embrace was always the warmest Mordecai had been since Atlas had brought him to St. Louis. Which didn't hurt, he supposed...or help.

  
A cold part of him knew that this was as much a weakness for Viktor as for him, a vulnerability someone may one day find out and exploit, using it to harm either of them through the other. Just as another, even colder part of him knew that he, himself, might one day—given enough incentive—become that very person.

  
But not tonight.

  
Tonight, Mordecai was content enough to lie here in Viktor's arms, revel in his grip, feel his weight. To scoff whenever Viktor told him how desirable he was, even though Viktor's own desire for him would seem to render this theorem irrefutable. Viktor, he told himself, strictly, had a fruitful imagination, no matter how crudely expressed it might be. He could fool himself, but not Mordecai. Mordecai was the one who knew how things really were, in this—arrangement, this alliance. Not relationship, no. Not that.

  
( _Might it be you're becoming sentimental as well, though?_ That voice inside his head asked, slyly, the one which sounded—from some angles—a lot like Bookie Lev's. _Forgetting to balance the accounts properly, eh,_ Reb Yeed _? This is a foolish thing to do, especially in front of the_ goyim _. Or_ with _the_ goyim _, for that matter...)_

  
Since its former possessor was dead, however—and at his hands, albeit inadvertantly—Mordecai felt somewhat justified, at least for the moment, in ignoring that voice, completely.

  
THE END


End file.
